Happy Thanksgiving.
There are many things that i feel thankful for this year. I'm thankful that everyone i care about is healthy, and for the most part happy. I'm thankful for the additions to my family this year, the marriages that are planned, and I'm extremely thankful for my niece Elke (she is so beautiful). I'm thankful that I'm safe, that i've gotten to learn so much these past few months, and that I'm in the caribbean scuba diving. I'm thankful for the love and support i've received from so many of you, both while i've been here and before.
Thankfully, tonight is the dive shop BBQ. I will be spending thanksgiving with most of my friends here, American and not, and the meal will resemble a 'normal' thanksgiving dinner. I wasn't really sure what i would be doing tonight, so i have to say I'm a little relieved that it worked out that thanksgiving fell on a BBQ night. I am going to miss my family tonight, as I'm used to spending thanksgiving with them, so I'm happy to have a plan to fill in the gap.
A lot has happened this past month. Part of the reason i haven't written is that i've been hesitant to talk about all of it until it was clear to me how it was going to land up. I've had major shifts in my personal life, major shifts in my training. The only thing that hasn't really changed much is my plan for what comes next; however that hasn't ever been real well defined anyway.
Training first i suppose: After i completed my divemaster (about 2 weeks ago), i made a decision to jump into the instructor course. I was unsure about this at first, so i originally committed to only the assistant instructor course which comprises the first couple days of the instructor course. After that completed i decided to go ahead and finish the whole thing. Long story short, I'm now a certified (well, I'm waiting for the paperwork to go through) Open Water Scuba Instructor. Technically i won't be teaching status until i get a few more dives under my belt, but i intend to get those in the next two weeks or so.
Although the instructor course is much more lecture oriented than the other courses (most of the diving courses are dive oriented: theory is mostly taught out of the classroom, and the class is centered on diving; whereas the instructor course is mostly lecture, and very structured diving which is more about learning to teach skills than about diving), its still a really interesting course. PADI (Professional Association of Dive Instructors) has put together really good curriculums for their classes, and studied educational research on how people learn (especially motor skills; like those of diving). Their course is a crash course in how to teach in a way that conforms with the research and the curriculum (among other things). Needless to say, i feel like i've learned a lot about how i would approach teaching other things as well. Not just diving. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to teach sometime. I do want to do classes for friends when i get home if i can work out all the logistics of gear and stuff like that (i will need to get some more experience diving in the seattle environment first, which is extremely different from the caribbean).
Socially here i've been pretty comfortable. I've found my niche of people that i hang out with regularly and who i really care about. It's both cool and weird how you always can find 'your' people when you go to a new place. Like i always do, i have a few different social circles that i cross here. Socially things here aren't too different from home. Last night i went to dinner at two friends house (our friend Charlotte is leaving the island on saturday after being here a long time, it was her goodbye dinner... going to miss her) and the night before that i watched a movie with three different friends (Dodgeball was pretty funny). So things aren't too different from home socially i guess. Except hardly anyone has a phone. That part is kinda cool :-)
Monday night was the night we finished the Instructor Examination, and that night was really really fun. Throughout the instructor course, everyone in the class had been really really good. No or very little drinking, etc, for the entire class. That night however, since we were all done, everyone let loose. I'll spare this list details, but we went from open bar to nice restaurant to open bar. It was a really EEFFING fun night, and everyone in my class was there, with most of the other people from our dive shop and many others from other dive shops who had friends who were in the same examination as us.
On a more personal note, things have changed a lot for me lately, and to be honest it's been something of a rough patch. A little over a month ago, Nicole told me that she didn't want to communicate with me any more while i was away; she told me she needed space and time to figure out what she really wanted. My relationship with Nicole has not been without complications this year, and we had already spoken about this trip being an opportunity for space. Prior to this cut off we had spoken on Skype pretty frequently as well as via email. The sudden cut was difficult for me, but it was important to me to respect her needs so i didn't call or email for a long time. Over this period i felt an extreme writers block to my journal. I didn't know what i could say without mentioning my relationship with nicole, and at the same time didn't know how to talk about my relationship with nicole in my journal; or the potential effects of doing so on our relationship. So i didn't add to my journal for a long time. Hence the long silence.
About a week ago, which was about a month into our lack of communication; i decided to call Nicole. We had a conversation that felt both attemptedly normal and awkwardly distant. At some point in the conversation Nicole told me that she didn't intend to get back together when i returned home. She said a lot of things that didn't really stick in my head that night, much of it is a blur; however the basic gist is that she doesn't believe we will ever (or at least easily) work through the long term issues that continue to plague us, and feels happier and healthier out of our relationship than in it.
None of this came as a huge shocking surprise to me. Nicole has had doubts for at least a year about our relationship, and has been voicing them since at least the last spring. I've been making strong attempts to change my life and what i see as the unhealthy aspects of it (hence I'm in honduras diving right now), and whether or not the changes i've made succeeded in saving my relationship, I'm thankful that i've made them. I believe I'm a better, healthier and stronger person for them. The growth i've done over this past year is some of the most personal growth i've ever experienced, and for that i am thankful. More than any other point in my life i have a love for who i am, and a faith in the universe. All that said, i am sad about my and Nicole's relationship coming to an end, and although i can see positive aspects of it (and relief in it at least being clearly defined) it's not what i would have chosen.
I've found that I'm a persons who once having loved someone is never really able to give up faith on the potential of that relationship. The downside of this is that I'm never really able to end a relationship; or at least haven't really been the major hand in doing it yet. The upside is that i never really give up on them either. I can always see the potential, and can always tap into the love i feel for someone. People close to me have told me that they have seen this coming for a long time (as have i, i suppose; although i had also seen it working out coming for a long time) and some have been honest enough to tell me that they truly believe its for the best. Probably true, i am a believer in the "what is meant to be will be" approach to relationships. That said i will miss this relationship and am still mourning it's loss.
At this point i've tried to spend some time by myself on this trip. I've not returned the passes that other people have made at me: to be honest having time to be alone, to not be caught up in any sort of physical or emotional relationship with another person (at least one in my immediate presence) has been extremely refreshing for me. Its been somewhat healing. The thought of pursuing something with another person still sounds unappealing to me. I'm meditating on what it means to share a relationship with someone, what it means to be yourself, and to be part of a couple. I've spent time thinking about my past relationships, and the similarities and differences in why and how they both worked, and eventually ended; and also my reaction to all those things.
I'm currently trying to figure out what i do next. I need to push my ticket back a bit to finish the last few courses i will be taking (diving specialty instructor courses including Wreck, Enriched Air, Search and Recovery, Gas Blending, and Equipment Repair), and to get my last few dives in to be an instructor. I would still like to do a bit of backpacking before i come home.
All of these dive classes have cost me a lot of money, and I'm running low- sooner or later i will have to come home and work again. I don't see myself working in diving, at least more than part time right away. I do hope to do it sometime in the future though, maybe take off for asia in a few years for a year's hiatus or something. I might be able to work out meeting my parents, Annalisa, Alex and Elke in mexico in december (its a little complicated to get there tho) and then coming home after that. I'm still trying to work it out.
Anyway, this has gotten extremely long. I will finally send it! I look forward to hearing from people. To those of you who have written, thank you much. To those of you who haven't, i miss you much. And to all of you, I'm thankful that you are in my life, and american or not, i wish you a happy thanksgiving.
The sun is shining brightly,
the wind is blowing chills,
Lots and lots of love,
math xoxoxoxox
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